My First Multiplayer Experience

@pumpa-cat

Skelly ships have their lights on different places than player ships; also there is a musical sting that's different when you have them in your spyglass.

They do sometimes go after you, but that's when they pop-up next to you or when they're close and you do something threatening to them ...

Ashen Lords like Captain Grimm take some time to beat, and are indeed not part of your Gold Hoarder Voyage - just coincidence they appear on the same island.

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For the puzzle in the vault, look for the medallions to put in the altar. They reveal on the altar how you should turn the first three pillars to open the vault within the vault. The fourth pillar has to match the three other pillars. There's a button to press on the altar to enter your combination. You can retry again and again.

Some extra tips, skip the following paragraph if you want to figure it out for yourself.

It's possible to find the correct combination with only one medallion or even without one, but putting one or two in makes it easier / faster. As the fourth pillar has one side with all the correct combinations, there are only four possible solutions (and to my experience the symbol on the first pillar appears twice on the fourth so that narrows it done to two possible solutions).

Be aware, some people mistake one key-padlock combination for another, they differ in position !

Usually one of us does the puzzle until solved while the other one brings the best chests just outside the vault and drops chests, trinkets and medallions to the floor. When the vault door closes and you're locked in you can pick up the piles of gold for some extra gold.

Watch out though, it can take some time spending in the vault and bringing the gold to where you can easily access it with harpoons - time enough for another crew to turn up, sink your ship and take the chest(s). As experienced players know where the vaults are and how to position the ship close enough, your "parking spot" may give you away.
For some of these vaults it's very useful to bring a rowboat and put it close to the vault, so you don't have to bring the chests all to your ship one-by-one.

Well that's what I like to see. Gg to the cap

@pumpa-cat said in My First Multiplayer Experience:

@lem0n-curry

Many thanks for the tip. I did skip the paragraph you suggested. 😄

I have seen many ships that seem to have three different coloured lights on at the same time (green, blue, orange). Are they the skelly ships? I don’t hear the music as I have that turned off. I don’t like in-game music playing as I play.

Player ships can have different lights as well !! Just in different positions.
When you're on the Ferry of the Damned and you didn't die to drowning or your crew mate (or a keg you blew up yourself), you can pick up a coloured light at the Well of Fates with your Lantern. With that you can light your ship's lanterns (and some Beacons at islands as well).

Skellie ships have some extra build on the aft deck.

Each death has its own colour (green for death by skelly, red by flame &c, (poison, lightning, shark, other crew)); they are also used for starting the Fort of the Damned and for making the green/red skellies vulnerable when you're on the Thieves' Haven Run Athena voyage.

An Ashen Lord and a vault? Now that's a decent first voyage.

I recommend not quitting for a week again if someone sinks you though. Because that can happen. It happens to all of us.

See you in Athenas Fortune I guess.

Yeah, skelly ships always have their lanterns lit with different colour flames of fate, its possible for players to have it, but its insanely rare, particularly for them to be visible. Most players will just switch off their lanterns because it makes you extremely visible at night and so will save below deck lanterns if they really want to save flames of fate.

If you're learning the game hunting skelly sloops is a good way to learn ship battles, you can do it when you've got nothing to lose since the visible patrols really will leave you alone unless you get right in their faces. You'll get to practice steering and cannon firing without needing to deal with boarding and the treasure they drop is a good rep boost early on if you actually win. They also teach you to stay calm in battle, which is the biggest thing in SoT, particularly they can show that most even ship battles are a marathon rather than a sprint, skelly ships can't bail, so persistence can really pay off when you're learning the ropes with them. So don't always run from them, if you start a session and spot one when you've got nothing else going on, go give them some aggro.

When I first played there was a world event where Flameheart's massive head used to float over an island insulting any pirate who came in range as his fleet patrolled around the island attacking anyone who came in range, the first mission I chose to play was an order of souls mission to kill a skeleton crew and I thought Flameheart was the guy I was meant to kill. There was also a massive storm around the island. I thought the game was crazy tough, but luckily I came back for a second session.

Long story short, anything visible from much of a distance such as the red tornado or ship shaped cloud is one or another kind of "world event" and is best avoided until you know what you're doing, not only are they a grade up of difficulty, they tend to attract other crews for obvious reasons.

@pumpa-cat Feel free, though as mentioned the easiest way to check is the music sting. I know you said you don't like playing with music, but if you turn it on for just a minute, if you look at what you think is a skeleton ship through your telescope you'll hear a dramatic sinister music sting which is the best confirmation, then you can turn the music back off.